UFC 200: Conor McGregor Has No Regrets For Not Jumping on the ‘Damn Flight’ to Vegas

Conor McGregor did not really expect that his retirement tweet on April 19 would end up with him being removed from his fight in UFC 200.

McGregor admitted that he did not put much thought into his post. He was not up to the promotional duties that came with the fight and wanted to talk about it in public.

The infamous tweet resulted to McGregor getting pulled out from his scheduled fight against Nate Diaz on July 9. Had McGregor decided to participate in the new conference and commercial shooting sooner, then the fight perhaps could have been saved.

The Irish fighter admitted that there were times when he thought that the Diaz rematch was what he really wanted. However, in the end, he remained steadfast.

McGregor told ESPN that he was “kind of having fun” at first but when he was pulled out from the fight, he became upset, too.

He added, “After all that’s been said and done, there were times (I thought) ‘I should have just jumped on the damn flight.’ But sometimes you’ve got to do what’s right for you and not what’s right for everybody else — especially if you’ve done what’s right for everyone else a million times over.”

Under standard UFC contracts, fighters classified as independent contractors are required to appear at a “reasonable” number of UFC promotional activities.

The UFC required McGregor to participate in the promotion in California and New York in late April. Just three months from the fight, others would consider this reasonable. Most fighters scheduled to fight at UFC 200 who also participated in the promotions admitted that they were not required to perform the same level of promotional duties as McGregor was.

Conor McGregor thought the conditions surrounding the April situation should have allowed him a pass on the promotional duty. Fox Sports Asia reported that although he was willing to go to New York for the press conference, he never intended to disturb his training session in Iceland.